The Working Group of the Plan of Democratic Memory ends with the investigation of 2022

 

The working group formed by historians, archaeologists, forensic experts and geneticists are about to finalise and close the files relating to the work undertaken in Celanova, A Capela and Vilacoba (Lousame) in 2022.

 

On 28 September 2022, the Galician Democratic Memory Plan for that year was signed between the Second Vice-Presidency and Regional Ministry of the Presidency, Justice and Sports, the Regional Ministry of Culture, Education, Vocational Training and Universities of the Xunta de Galicia and the University of Santiago for the implementation of actions within the Four-Year Plan 2021/2024 of Galician Democratic Memory.

 

The plan integrates three fundamental strategic lines of public policies of Democratic Memory that are intended to be developed throughout the period (2021-2024), although its objectives can be reviewed annually. These strategic lines are:

 

Location, exhumation and identification of victims.

Dissemination of work carried out and results achieved.

Recognition and signposting of burial sites and promotion of places of memory.

 

The tasks for 2022 were:

 

The task for 2022 was the exhumation of the Vilacova grave (Lousame, A Coruña) in search of the murdered Manuel Hermo, the exhumation of the A Capela grave (A Coruña) in search of the murdered Joaquín Antón Rodeiro, Manuel Franco Bermúdez and Francisco Guerreiro Guerreiro Guerreiro and the exhumation of the Celanova grave in search of the murdered Baldomero Vigil Escalera Vallejo, Marcelino Fernández García, Guillermo de Diego Álvarez, Alfonso Moreno Gayol, Abelardo Suárez del Busto, Belarmino Álvarez García, and Mariano Blanco González.

 

The results, which can now be consulted on the website, are as follows:

Grave in the cemetery of San Breixo (Celanova, Ourense):

 

The historical research started from the demand of two families who were looking for Marcelino Fernández and Abelardo Suárez, both neighbours of Gijón who fled before the imminent takeover by the rebels towards the end of October 1937. They were tried in Camposancos and were subsequently transferred, along with five other individuals (also from Gijón and with a very similar life story) to Celanova prison. The seven were sentenced to death and, after spending more than six months in the town of Ourense, the military authorities ordered their execution. Subsequently, the Moroccan Bandera de Fet de las Jons carried it out on 22nd September 1939, being smashed against the walls of the cemetery and buried in a mass grave.

 

The archaeological work: We began to excavate three of these burials, two of which were immediately discarded and covered up, while the remaining one, as it fitted the characteristics of the group we were looking for, was exhumed. Subsequently, the trench was excavated and the scarce power identified two coffins, one in front of the other. The individuals were deposited one on top of the other, in anomalous positions and fitted the age range and circumstances of death. They were exhumed and once all the identified individuals were removed in trench, and the overlying deposit was excavated, the deposits below were excavated. Later, the excavated area was extended in plan and two more individuals were located. The development of the work required an extension of the excavation in the trench facing the cemetery road, in which the remaining individuals were found.

 

Genetic analysis: DNA samples were collected from relatives of the victims of the grave and are being analysed by the Forensic Genetics Laboratory of the USC. Subsequently, they will be compared with the DNA of the samples of the remains found in order to verify the identity of each of them. This phase of the work is one of the most time-consuming, because depending on the quality and state of conservation of the remains, the genetic analyses become more complex. At the present time, two skeletal remains have been finalised and have been found to be compatible with those of the disappeared Marcelino Fernández García and Abelardo Suárez del Busto.

 

Grave in the Vilacoba-Lousame Cemetery (A Coruña):

 

The historical research: The previous research carried out on the victims and the space indicated, at first, the possibility of finding five people buried: Manuel García Hermo, Perfecto Félix Vilas Romero, his brother, Antonio, María Josefa Becerra Laíño and Avelino Méndez Suárez. All of them were killed as a result of "paseos" at different times in the rearguard: at the end of August 1936, at the end of February 1938 and towards the end of the war.

 

The archaeological investigation: The archaeological intervention was carried out in 4 different sectors. The negative results in the first area demanded the opening of new spaces, even with extensions, in which the remains of an adult male individual of middle age were recovered and exhumed. From an archaeological point of view, it cannot be concluded that these remains are those of a victim of the civil war, but neither can they be ruled out until a thorough analysis by the forensic anthropology and genetics team has been carried out.

 

Forensic analysis: The study carried out confirms that in the parish cemetery of Vilacoba (Lousame) - in UE206 - we located a clandestine burial of a young adult male (20-40 years old) with signs of violence in the head (remains of a firearm projectile impacted in the preserved brain fragments).

 

Genetic analysis: The remains were subjected to DNA analysis (and diagnosis) at the Forensic Genetics Laboratory of the USC. The genetic study made it possible to exclude that the remains belong to Manuel García Hermo, given the incompatibility in a total of 5 and 7 genetic markers, analysed in two different bone remains.

 

More information at: http://fosas.nomesevoces.net/lugares/fosas/27/fosa-del-cementerio-de-santa-eulalia-de-vilacoba

 

 

Grave in the Cemetery of A Capela (A Coruña):

 

The historical research sought to know the burial space, the life trajectories of the victims (as part of the violent logic of the 1936 coup and the war) and the circumstances of their deaths. We got to know the stories of Joaquín Antón Rodeiro, Francisco Guerrero Guerrero, Manuel Franco Bermúdez, Ramón Erías Fernández, Manuel Prado Allegue and the Sardiña Navarro brothers (Celestino and Ramón). All of them were killed within a day of each other in August 1936 and buried in the cemetery of A Capela. 

 

Archaeological research: The data obtained from the ice-radar prospecting show the complexity of the subsoil layout of the areas explored in the cemetery (former civil and ecclesiastical part). This makes it difficult to identify elements compatible with the burials we are looking for. We detected levels of earth contributions, reforms and re-levelling of the terrain that made the layout of the access path to the historic cemetery disappear. In addition, we found signs compatible with burials and funerary vessels that could have altered the level of circulation over the years.

 

More information: http://fosas.nomesevoces.net/lugares/fosas/28/fosa-do-cemiterio-da-capela